CLINTON — When Steven Lutes and Michael Cislak graduated from the Fire Academy in December, they continued their families' firefighting traditions.

Both are the third generation to don the Clinton Fire Department uniform and protect their hometown from fires. Although there are many two-generation firefighting families, these two may be the first third-generation firefighters in the department.

Lutes follows his father, Michael, a captain in the department, and grandfather Larry.

Cislak joins his father, also named Michael, in a career his grandfather, John, first pursued.

The classmates joined the department in June, Lutes a day ahead of Cislak, along with Patrick Burgwinkel.

With the expanded EMT duties required of firefighters, they both got quick experience as soon as they started. All three rookies responded to a tragic car accident that took two lives in August and shook even seasoned firefighters.

They took different routes to their careers, however.

"I never really thought I was going to be a firefighter," Lutes said, but he followed his father after 12 years working at a golf course. After he married his wife, Samantha, and had a child, Rocco, he decided he needed a good career with benefits.

Cislak, however, always knew he would be a firefighter.

"It's a lifelong dream accomplished," Cislak said. "Ever since I could talk, I wanted to be a firefighter. I always knew I was going to work for the Clinton Fire Department."

His mother, Cathy, confirmed he had that goal since the age of 3.

It is a family job, Lutes noted, since every family member knows when something is going on and the fire whistle blows.

And Cathy Cislak said she is very proud of her husband and son, but still, "When they run out the door I yell to them to be safe."

For Cislak, it was a steady progression.

At 18, while a senior at Assabet Regional Vocational Technical High School, he filled out an application at the Lancaster Fire Department and worked there for three years until he was old enough to take the civil service test required to join the Clinton Fire Department.

"I learned a lot working in Lancaster," Cislak said. "Just being on the job, it's good experience."

"I always wanted to help people," Cislak said. "Growing up, my father being a firefighter, he's the greatest thing in the world."

But the reality can be less glamorous.

"Going into a burning building, it's unlike any other experience," Cislak said.

Lutes and Cislak both grew up with the reality of firefighting dangers.

When he would go to a fire and watch his father, Lutes said, "there was always that thought that he might not come out or come home, especially when he would come home and say he had a close call and that he thought there was a possibility he was not going to make it. So growing up, there was always a respect for my father for what he did, but also a little fear knowing that I could lose my dad at anytime."

"It was always fun – coming down and seeing dad," Lutes said. His son wants to a be firefighter now, but Lutes also now knows why his father called him every night.

"You always call from the station at night," Lutes said. "You always tell them you love them and call at night."

Despite the dangers, "I go to work every single day with a smile on my face," Cislak said. "I want to be helping people."

He noted his second day on the job, he got a call for a dead body and his first overdose; doing CPR was "a real awakening."

He said, at night, he jumps up at a call.

"You mentally prepare yourself," Lutes said.

He said he hasn't had problems with what he's seen, possibly because, "It makes you feel good when you save somebody."

Lutes said the hardest part for him is when he gets 911 calls for children.

"You can tell the parent is terrified," he said and, as a dispatcher, he talks people through the crisis.

The rookies also get help from the veterans on the department.

"It's nice that, with older guys, they teach me the tricks, for instance when there's no number on a house," Lutes said.

"Growing up, I knew every single guy on the department," he said. He was encouraged to join the department and, when he started, "I knew every single person."

Changes

A lot has changed over the years, and the generations.

Training is very different than earlier generations, Lutes said, and includes things like rappelling down six stories and special rescues.

One thing all agreed on: Building construction has improved, with fire codes decreasing the number of fires in newer homes.

Older homes are more likely to have construction techniques that can fuel a fire, and firefighters have a sense of what they might face. Cislak, an electrical apprentice in his other job, while his father works in construction, has a sense of it from the inside.

While building codes and smoke detectors have helped reduce fatalities, it doesn't mean there are not dangers.

The senior Cislak was at the Worcester Cold Storage fire that claimed the lives of six Worcester firefighters, for instance. And Cislak noted attending the funeral of Worcester firefighter Jon Davies last year after he lost his life fighting a fire.

Locally, of course, Marty McNamara V's death in a Lancaster fire still resonates.

But the best way to prevent tragedy, they all agree, is training, with firefighters able to let the training kick in as they focus on the job of fighting a fire.

Both paid for their own EMT schooling, which helped them get on the department, and prepared them for their EMT roles.

Traditions

The Firefighter Academy was a tradition. Cislak remarked that as he went to classes each day, he passed the class photos in the hallway, including his father's class.

"Every single day of the academy, I walked by his picture," Cislak said. It helped give perspective, "realizing those who have gone before you."

"I told myself, if I was going to do this, I was going to pour everything into it and be the best I can be," Lutes said of his study. That included intensive training, both physical and mental.

Lutes said several people suggested he become a firefighter and his father's fiancée, Tracy Maillet, encouraged him, he said to pursue the EMT classes.

"I take the job extremely seriously," he said. "One mistake can be disastrous."

"It's the best job in the world," the senior Michael Cislak said of firefighting. "Why wouldn't I like him to follow me?"

He remembers his father, John, and following him to fires.

"We'd do the same. We were always there," the younger Cislak said.

John Cislak joined the department in 1967 and retired after a heart attack 11 years later.

In his 20s, John's son Michael decided he wanted to do it and worked as a call firefighter for four years before taking the test, joining the department in 1991.

"It's enjoyable to work together," the elder Cislak said. "I like helping people," he added, noting, "On most calls, you see people on the worst day of their lives."

As he gets to know more people over the years, he said, he has seen it help calm a person if one of the responders is someone he or she knows.

"You never know if you're going to know them," Lutes said, something that frequently happens in a small community like Clinton.

Larry Lutes became a call firefighter in 1958, joining as a permanent member in 1962. He retired in 1986, after a heart attack.

"The hardest part are the losses," Lutes quoted his grandmother, Judy, Larry's widow, as she reflected on her husband's career.

Generations

Michael Lutes said he was around firefighting since he was born and recalled fires such as the Prescott Mills fire, where as a youngster he helped get some of the gear to his father.

Michael Lutes started as a machinist at Norton after school, had a son and then was looking for job security, starting with the department in 1986. He noted there had been a Lutes on the department every calendar year since 1962, with his and his father's service were separated by a few months before he started in the fall of 1986.

The younger Lutes joined the department in June of last year, but his grandfather passed away before he graduated from the academy. Still, for several months, all three firefighting generations were alive.

"My grandfather liked to listen to me on the scanner," Lutes said, when he was dispatching.

His brother, Allan, is studying to be a Lancaster EMT.

Michael Lutes recalls experiences that reflect the highs and lows that come with the job.

They range from delivering a baby in 2007 to "the hardest – I was one of the firefighters that removed Marty McNamara."

And the trauma "doesn't always hit you right away," he said, noting that he attended a crib death. After his second son was born, "then it hit me" since he could relate to his newborn potentially being in the same situation.

For the two father-son firefighters, however, it is more about the positive of helping people, from medical problems that make up the bulk of calls to the intensity of fighting fires.

And that keeps them alert to calls for help from their friends, family and neighbors.